human-first in innovation

human-first in innovation

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Under observation

Is it the summer break or me that currently the social media feeds show one curiosity after another and trend and counter trends emerge particularly clearly?

By

Stefanie Wibbeke

It was
early in the morning, I had my first coffee and scrolled through the LinkedIn news
feed. And this video was a scroll stopper:

Under the
brand name Earth Eyes, store visitors will soon be observed and their behavior
will be examined for unorthodoxies by artificial intelligence’s pattern
detection so that a book is never placed misappropriated or stolen again. My
first thought: "I would have needed this during my studies. When fellow
students hid the sought-after compendium in the wrong department to be the
first one to read it the next morning." My second thought: "Does the
cashier really believe that his movements, so to speak his productivity, will
not be evaluated ... "A third thought came to me much later, after I
continued to scroll through the feed of another platform during lunch break:

What these ladies
do with tape, modeling paste and makeup is amazing, admirable and scary alike.
They create a completely new appearance, a new nose, a v-shaped chin, the eyes
look gigantic, the cheek bones enormously emphasized - a phenomenon somewhere
between top model and praying mantis, but that might only be my
European-influenced perceptual filter. Much more exciting is the fact that the
complete reinvention of one's face coincides with the increased recording and
analysis efforts of the industry or state.

Of course,
it would be hyperbolic to say that an increase in surveillance leads people to
re-model their appearance beyond recognition. But maybe this is what it’s all
about (subconsciously): If I have the feeling of being observed everywhere and
feel being determined by others to a certain degree, I design myself. And
decide what the environment sees about/from/of me to regain at least a tiny bit
of self-determination.

Undeniably,
media and the ideals of beauty represented in that context have a great impact
on self-perception and self-assertion within the cultural context. But however,
it’s too easy just to blame them. We, as innovators, have to enter the
discourse, understand how technology affects us, and have to ask more for the why
and about. Because not everything that is technically feasible might be
desirable for the society in general.

Stefanie Wibbeke

Head of Marketing

Stefanie is Head of Marketing at INDEED. She is responsible for spreading the word about us through digital and social marketing, partnerships, events, and more. As humanities scholar, she questions our work from a different angle and makes us explain projects with the human experience in mind. Residing in Hamburg by choice, she couldn’t live without her daily dose of crocheting.